Enter Dr. Belleville
While waiting for the kettle to boil I happened to glance in the
direction of the Nile. A column of moving smoke at once attracted my
attention. A launch, of course, and what more likely than that it
should contain soldiers, Arabs, servants, and a surgeon. "I shall
soon be free to return to my work, it seems!" I said aloud, and it is
wonderful what a lot of dissatisfaction the reflection gave me. I came
within an ace, indeed, of consigning the Nile Monuments to literary
perdition. But only temporarily. For I felt that I should need as
engrossing mental occupation soon. Work is a fine consoler. The party
arrived a few minutes before noon. It consisted of Sir Robert Ottley's
dragoman, half a company of Egyptian camel corps under command of a
fussy little English-French lieutenant named Thomas Dubois, some twenty
swart-faced fellaheen labourers, and two English friends of Sir Robert
and his daughter. The latter were rather singular personages. One was
middle-aged, short and thick and "bearded like the pard" up to his very
eyes. He rejoiced in the name of William Belleville and was a Fellow
of the Royal College of Surgeons. The other one was tall and thin and
marvellously good-looking. He called himself Captain Frankfort Weldon,
and I soon discovered was an Honourable. Preparatory to discharging
myself in toto of my responsibilities, I took charge of the entire
crowd. I have been assured by my best friends that I am a natural
autocrat. Those who are not my friends have sometimes described me
as an arrogant and self-assertive egotist. I contend, however, that
I was eminently well qualified to judge what was best to be done, in
that instance, at all events, and it is not my fault that Weldon and
Belleville chose to consider themselves slighted because I did not ask
their advice. Within ten minutes I had sent the camel soldiers packing
across the desert in the direction taken by the Arab robbers. They did
not want to go in the least, but I put my foot down hard, and they
went. Without losing a moment thereafter I made the fellaheen erect a
large double tent in a shaded cleft in the mountain at some distance
from the temple. It did not take them long, for I directed their
operations personally. I then marched them to the temple. Miss Ottley
was talking to the Englishmen in the pylon. I bowed and passed her,
followed by the fellaheen. I gave to each man a task, the carriage of
some piece of furniture. The two strongest I appointed as bearers of
Sir Robert Ottley's cot. The baronet was awake. He questioned me.
"What are you doing, Pinsent?"
"I'm going to move you to a tent for better air, to hasten your
recovery," I said.
He only sighed and wearily closed his eyes.
Then the procession started. When Miss Ottley saw her father being
carried out, she was so surprised that she stood dumb. Turning round a
little later I saw that she and her friends were conversing amiably.
Arrived at the tents, I fixed the patient comfortably, then arranged
the furniture in both apartments; the outer, of course, was to be Miss
Ottley's room.
When all was done, I dismissed the fellaheen to other tasks and walked
up to Ottley's cot. "Sir Robert," said I.
His eyes opened and he looked at me.
"You know that your friend, Dr. Belleville, has come?"
"Yes--we have had a chat."
"So. Well, I now propose to turn the case over to him. Your recovery
should be rapid. You are already practically convalescent."
"You are leaving me?"
"You no longer need my services."
"How can I ever repay you, Pinsent, for your extreme kindness to me?"
"Easily; let me be present when you open the coffin of Ptahmes."
"What?"
"Ah!" said I, "I forgot." I then told him of my experiment with the
sarcophagus, and the perfume. He listened with the most passionate
attention. Finally he said:
"You are not certain the sarcophagus does contain the body, though?"
"Not certain, Sir Robert."
"Yet you told me, if I remember aright, that, that----"
"You were dying," I interrupted. "I had to arouse you. But, after all,
I feel sure your desire will be gratified. I have no sort of doubt but
that a body lies in the coffin."
"Nor I," said he. "The papyrus speaks of an essential oil the mere
scent of which arrests decay. Ptahmes alone knew the secret of its
preparation. But the sarcophagus must be guarded, Pinsent."
"I'll fix a watch," I said, and held out my hand. "Good-bye, sir."
"You are returning to your camp?"
"Yes."
"Then au revoir, Pinsent. I shall send for you as soon as I am well
enough to investigate the coffin."
"Thank you."
But he continued to hold my hand and looked me in the eyes earnestly.
"Be careful of yourself," he murmured.
"Careful," I repeated, puzzled.
"Ay," he murmured still lower, "you have incurred the curse
unwittingly--but still you have incurred it."
"What curse?"
"The curse which Ptahmes directed against all desecrators of his tomb."
I thought he raved, and felt his pulse. But it was steady as a
rock. "Come, come," I said with a smile. "I shall be thinking you a
superstitious man, Sir Robert, presently."
"Do you believe in God?" he asked.
"Yes," I cried, astounded.
"Then are you not superstitious, too? But there, I have warned you.
I'll say no more. Good-bye. Kindly send my daughter to me."
I found Miss Ottley and the two Englishmen at the door of the outer
tent. "Sir Robert wants you, Miss Ottley," I observed, and passed on. I
had hardly gone a dozen yards, however, when I found I had a companion
on either side of me.
Dr. Belleville immediately opened fire. "You have been taking time by
the forelock, Dr. Pinsent," he said softly. "I should hardly have moved
the patient for a day or two. He is very weak."
"My name is Frankfort Weldon--Captain Weldon," said the handsome
soldier--introducing himself. "I think you have annoyed Miss Ottley,
Dr. Pinsent. Seems to me you should have consulted her before acting,
at least."
I glanced from one to the other and shrugged my shoulders. "The
thing is done," said I. "Gentlemen, good-day." My long legs left
them quickly in the rear. There seemed no good reason to waste time
in explaining myself to them. They would soon enough find out the
reasonableness of my actions for themselves, if possessed of ordinary
human curiosity. But a second later I stopped and turned. "Dr.
Belleville," I shouted, "I shall fix a watch at the temple. Ottley
wishes it maintained. Miss Ottley will tell you why."
I found the fellaheen collected in a group near the old store house.
They eyed me approaching with open sullenness. I chose two among their
number and directed them to stand guard before the pylon for four
hours. The two I had picked moved off obediently enough, but they
were stopped almost on instant by their leader, a big ruffian with
a scarred, black face and wild, fiercely scowling eyes. Sir Robert
Ottley's dragoman hurried to my side. "Softly, Excellency, or there
will be trouble," he muttered. "Let me speak to them. Yazouk is a
chief--he will not be commanded. His term of service does not start
till to-morrow. He is angry."
"Silence, you," I responded in the same tone. "There is but one way to
crush a nigger mutiny."
I stepped smilingly forward, looking into Yazouk's eyes. The black
giant--he stood six feet four in his bare feet and was a splendid
physical specimen--put his hand on the knife in his belt. But before
he could guess at my intention he was sprawling on the sand. He
uttered the yell of an angry wild beast and, springing up, rushed at
me with bare blade. I stepped aside and kicked him in the stomach. He
collapsed, howling dismally. I marched up to the rest, who were all
handling their knives, and showed them my revolver. Two minutes later
they were all disarmed and I was a walking arsenal. I turned to the
dragoman. "I am going away, Mehemet--to my own camp. But so that you
will have no trouble with this scum, I shall take their chief with me.
I need a servant."
Mehemet bowed to the very ground. "Your Excellency knows best," he
muttered reverently.
"Yazouk," said I, "yonder is my ass. Go saddle him for me."
Yazouk went. He returned with the ass saddled and bridled before I
was half through a cigarette. I mounted forthwith and started towards
my long-deserted camp. "Come, Yazouk!" I called out carelessly, and
I took good care not to look back. There is no means surer of making
an African obey you than to act as if you are certain he has no
alternative. Perhaps Yazouk hesitated for a moment, torn with fear and
hate, but he followed me. Soon I heard the patter of his footsteps on
the sand. Then I said to myself, "Now, if this man is to remain with
me and be my servant I must make him fear me as he would the plague.
But how?" I solved the riddle at the end of five miles. I must show him
that I despised him utterly. So I stopped. He stopped. Twenty paces
separated us. "Yazouk," I said, "come here!"
He approached, eyeing me like a wolf. "From this day for a month,
Yazouk, you shall be my slave," I observed calmly. "If you prove a good
slave I shall pay you when the term ends at the rate of fifty piasters
a day. If you offend me by so much as winking an eyelash I shall not
only pay you nothing, but I shall ask Poseidon to transform you into a
hyena. Will you like that?"
Yazouk did not remark on my dreadful threat, but there was murder in
his eyes. I smiled at him, and, always looking him full in the face, I
took one by one the knives I had taken from his fellows, from my belt
and cast them on the sand at his feet. "It is not fit for a lord to
carry such trash when he has a slave," I said. "Pick up those knives."
Yazouk obeyed me. When he stood upright again there was a great doubt
in his eyes. I thought to myself, it would be quite easy for this
ruffian to murder me at any time in my sleep, and already I am a wreck
for want of sleep. I threw my revolver on the sand. "Carry that,
too!" I commanded loftily--and spurred my ass on. Probably a volume
might be written on the state of Yazouk's mind as he trudged along
behind me to my camp--a whole compendium of psychology. But I cannot
write it, because I never once glanced at him, and, therefore, I can
only guess at the turmoil of his thoughts. But the event justified my
expectations. I was so mortally wearied when I reached my camp that
I had no heart left even to discover whether my precious manuscripts
had been disturbed by some chance wayfarer of the wilderness. It
sufficed me that my tent was standing and that it contained a cot. I
cast myself down, without even troubling to remove my boots, and I
slept like the dead for sixteen solid hours. When I awoke it was high
noon. A steaming bowl of coffee stood upon my table and a mess of
baked rice and fish. Beside the plate lay my revolver, and every one
of the knives I had given Yazouk to carry. Yazouk himself stood at
the flap of the tent, a monstrous, stolid sentinel. When I arose he
bent almost double. I swept the armoury into a drawer and attacked my
breakfast with the relish of a famished man. Then I set to work with
the energy of a giant refreshed; and with short intervals for meals,
sleep and exercise, I toiled at my book thereafter till it was roughly
finished. So twenty days sped by. Throughout Yazouk waited upon me
like the slave of Aladdin's lamp. I had not a fault to find with him.
Indeed, he was a perfect jewel of a servant, and he stood in such
abject terror of my every movement, nod or smile or frown, that I could
have wished to retain his services for ever. But that was not to be.
On the twenty-first morning he accidentally dropped a cup and broke
it. I heard the smash and looked up. It was to see Yazouk flying like
a panic-stricken deer into the desert. I shouted to recall him, but he
only sped the faster.